It seemed to them a worthy thing that such an honor should be given at their burial to the dead who have fallen on the field of battle. The plague was just a plague. He advanced the foundations of democracy and governed during Athenss Golden Age, when the arts, architecture, and philosophyas well as Athens itselfreached new heights. Here is that speech: Alcohol-free bars, no-booze cruises, and other tools can help you enjoy travel without the hangover. To save chestnut trees, we may have to play God, Why you should add native plants to your garden, What you can do right now to advocate for the planet, Why poison ivy is an unlikely climate change winner. The Athenians, on the other hand, respected a broader and fairer concept of the law, with no less reverence: While we are tolerant in our private lives, in public affairs we do not break the law chiefly because of our respect for it. The arrival of the Sophist philosophers in Athens occurred during his middle life, and he seems to have taken full advantage of the society of Zeno and particularly Anaxagoras, from whom he is said to have learned impassivity in the face of trouble and insult and skepticism about alleged divine phenomena. Pericles, (born c. 495 bce, Athensdied 429, Athens), Athenian statesman largely responsible for the full development, in the later 5th century bce, of both the Athenian democracy and the Athenian empire, making Athens the political and cultural focus of Greece. This is a sobering history, but, reading Thucydides account of the plague while under lockdown, I sometimes found the frosty old historian oddly heartening. They respected the warrior class and placed them among the top member of the society. And in his last recorded speech in 430, although its intention was to persuade the Athenians to keep fighting, he said: For those who are prospering and who have a choice, going to war is folly (2.61.1). Pericles was a famous Greek general. At the begining of the war, Athens and Sparta both thought they knew how to win. Only facing dangers that the mind can comprehend deserves to be called bravery, and that is what is expected of the men in his polis. In Athens, all citizens were equal before the law. Even more simply, it is a democracy because while Athenians "are free and tolerant in our private lives, in public affairs we keep to the law. He used his speeches to articulate a compelling vision for Athens and its citizens, inspiring them to come together around common goals. A noted orator, Pericles stated in his famous Funeral Oration that Athenian citizens regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a harmless, but a useless character.. They need leaders who understand that individual freedom, self-government, and equality before the law are of the highest value in themselves. The Spartans believed in deeds, not words. The willingness to perform military service for his homeland is the most fundamental and demanding duty of the citizen. In the speech he honoured the fallen and held up Athenian democracy as an example to the rest of Greece. He gave a speech in Athens, a public speech, honoring the many warriors who were killed in battle after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. After the dead had been buried in a public grave, one of the leading citizens, chosen by the city, would offer a suitable speech, and on this occasion Pericles was chosen. Freedom of speech, extended to each and every citizen, was its hallmark and this freedom was the target of ridicule, not only by aristocrats who thought only those bred in political tradition or formally educated should speak, but also by the admirers of Sparta where decisions were made by acclamation without debate. This past spring, Richard Bernstein investigated the questions hed been asking his whole careerabout right, wrong, and what we owe one anotherone last time. Photograph by James P. Blair, Nat Geo Image Collection. While Pericles chooses to praise the Athenian citizen, Socrates criticizes Athens . This ancient marvel rivaled Romes intricate network of roads, For some long COVID patients, exercise is bad medicine, Radioactive dogs? Finally, Pericles revels in the variety available to the citizens of Athensan object of scorn to Plato, but another quality, we must remember, normally associated with aristocracy. The stakes of our own vulnerability are no different. A democracy is a form of government that gives all the ability to participate, and according to Pericles everyone has a responsibility to take part. Modified by time and circumstance, his vision has proven peculiarly powerful. 2 Pages. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes"[15] These lines form the roots of the famous phrase "equal justice under law." The highest reward is the kind of immortality that was once reserved for epic heroes but which now has come to the Athenian soldiers who have died in the service of their city, and which Pericles urges the living to earn for themselves: They gave their lives for the common good and thereby won for themselves the praise that never grows old and the most distinguished of all graves, not those in which they lie, but where their glory remains in eternal memory, always there at the right time to inspire speech and action. Here Pericles has identified a critical element of his vision for Athens: its commitment to reason and intelligence. Gill, N.S. But soon after Pericles gave that prideful speech, the original democracy got sick. A correct assessment is vital for understanding Pericles, but explanations vary considerably; some argue that Pericles was merely forging a low-level political weapon for use against Cimon, who had a foreign mother. An even greater substitution for the glories of war could be found in the exercise by each Athenian of his political duties. Prior to the plague's devastation, Athenians were already dying as a result of the war. Instead, they thought man was of the same race as the gods, a creature capable of extraordinary achievements. They excluded money, the arts and sciences, philosophy, aesthetic pleasures, and the life of the mind in general, for all these things might foster individualism and detract from devotion to the polis. Rats invaded paradise. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Pericles approved payment for jury duty and for soldiers, sailors, and administrators. That the soldiers put aside their desires and wishes for the greater cause. [21] He regards the soldiers who gave their lives as truly worth of merit. The ancient Greek statesman Pericles (ca 495-429 B.C.) On the contrary, we have forced every sea and land to become an entrance for our daring, and we have everywhere established permanent monuments of the harm we have done our enemies and the good we have done for our friends (2.4l.4). Pericles ends with a short epilogue, reminding the audience of the difficulty of the task of speaking over the dead. This is because it commands our deep respect." Gazing at the men and women gathered for this solemn moment, Pericles reminds them of the difficult times they face. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. left his mark on the world in far more ways than the iconic Acropolis that still defines the skyline of Athens. They would have been appalled by Platos notion that each man should do the one thing for which he was best suited, and so would the Athenians described by Pericles. N.S. As Thucydides recounts Pericles claiming in a famous speech, "Our natural bravery springs from our way of life, not from the compulsion of laws.We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the arts without loss of manliness." Omissions? Book 2, chapter 63: Pericles' third speech. . Plato asserted that democracy unjustly distributes a sort of equality to equal and unequal alike (Republic 55C), and Aristotle later claimed that in democracies justice is the enjoyment of arithmetical equality, and not the enjoyment of proportionate equality on the basis of merit (Politics 1317b). It depends. For Pericles, Athens itself was a competitor for these prizes in the agon among poleis, past and present. They did not believe that man was entirely trivial, a mere bit of dust in the vast Cosmic order, such that his passing was a thing of no account. No one, moreover, if he has it in him to do some good for the city, is barred because of poverty or humble origins (Thucydides 2.37.1). The surge in mail-in voting this year has protected people from the coronavirus, but it has also highlighted problems in the nations patchwork, underfunded election system. "Pericles, son of Xanthippos, spoke like this". [32], , ' . The average citizen could not look even to his polis for the satisfaction of his greatest spiritual needs. Judgment was rendered according to their laws, once again, by courts made up of citizens. Thucydides was a worldly Athenian general, whose History of the Peloponnesian War is a cold-eyed account of the ruinous conflict between democratic Athens and militaristic Sparta. Many historians consider that event to have marked the birth of Athenian democracy. In the streets around the Fifth Precinct police station, protesters battle law enforcement, chastise looters, and fight to be heard. Politics soon took priority over the arts for Pericles. Thucydides says early in his History that the speeches presented are not verbatim records, but are intended to represent the main ideas of what was said and what was, according to Thucydides, "called for in the situation". Axolotls and capybaras are TikTok famousis that a problem? Some time in the eighth century the polis emerged, and its needs at once came into conflict with the old heroic ethos. Plato, in his Menexenus, ascribes authorship to Pericles's companion, Aspasia.[9]. It was an established Athenian practice by the late 5th centuryBCE to hold a public funeral in honour of all those who had died in war. Surviving the disease, he carefully set down the symptoms, knowledge of which will enable it to be recognized, if it should ever break out again. His ancient empirical analysis of catastrophe offers a jot of hope, if not wonder: for as long as there have been plagues, there have been people, scared but tenacious, using reason to try to learn from them. A seasoned, hard-bitten warrior, he was, for once, at a loss: Words indeed fail one when one tries to give a general picture of this disease; and as for the suffering of individuals, they seemed almost beyond the capacity of human nature to endure. Thucydides himself got the plague but survived, as he coolly notes in passing. He was too scrupulous to blame the epidemic on the Spartansan ancient reproach to those today who try to pin blame on foreign rivals. The arts and philosophy also flourished during Pericles reign, when Socrates and the playwrights Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes produced some of their finest works. Social distancing and mass burials are now a part of New Yorks cityscape. The answer was to be found in the power of Athens, although less in its extent than its character. https://www.thoughtco.com/pericles-funeral-oration-thucydides-version-111998 (accessed May 1, 2023). Thucydides fervently supported Periclesbut was less enthusiastic about the institution of democracy. In the climax of his praise of Athens, Pericles declares: "In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas; while I doubt if the world can produce a man, who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility as the Athenian. Despite Thucydides' divided attitude towards democracy, the speech he put in Pericles' mouth supports the democratic form of government. THUCYDIDES gives Pericles very little to say in his Funeral Oration about the political institutions of Athenian democracy. In contrast, Pericles points to the limited jurisdiction of the Athenian regime, which leaves a considerable space for individualism and privacy, free from public scrutiny: Not only do we conduct our public life as free men but we are also free of suspicion of one another as we go about our every-day lives. Under his leadership Atheniandemocracyand the Athenian empire flourished, makingAthensthe political and cultural focus of Greece between the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian wars. In 1985, a New England Journal of Medicine article argued that it was a combination of influenza and staphylococcus, dubbed the Thucydides syndrome. A 1994 article in the American Journal of Epidemiology rejected that diagnosis, proposing, instead, typhus, anthrax, or perhaps a potentially explosive respiratory agent.. One can recognize this dichotomy by analyzing the utilization of foils in Pericles. Pericles lifted Athens into a golden age through his support of the arts, architecture, philosophy, and democracy building. The freedom we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. In a democracy, citizens behave lawfully while doing what they like without fear of prying eyes. he sponsored the play Persians by the great tragic playwright Aeschylus. But Thucydides chronicle of what happened just after Pericles funeral oration is unsparingand should be as enduring as the speech itself. That Pericles immediately succeeded the assassinated Ephialtes as head of the democratic party in 461 is an ancient oversimplification; there were other men of considerable weight in Athens in the next 15 years. His father,Xanthippus, began his political career by a dynastic marriage to Agariste of the controversial Alcmaeonid family. More than 20,000 tons of marble were used, producing the iconic Parthenon and the imposing colonnade of the Propylaea, the entrance gateway. The Spartans faced this fundamental problem of the polis in its sharpest form. Plato recognized that the freedom afforded by the Athenian democracy seemed pleasant to many people, but his own judgment was less friendly: Democracy is an agreeable, anarchic form of society, with plenty of variety, which treats all men as equal, whether they are equal or not (Republic 558C). . Athens is a major Greek city-state in European history. In 430429 B.C.E., Athens was devastated by a mysterious epidemic, which reared its head again a few years later. He speaks of the ancestors with great honor and valor and that it was them who gave birth to Athens. Orderly Athenians, no longer expecting to live long enough to face punishment for crimes, plunged into a state of unprecedented lawlessness. They could not even bother to lay their dead to rest respectably. Most of those who have spoken here before me have commended the lawgiver who added this oration to our other funeral customs. Whatever it was, it was a horror. The image and example of the prosperous, free nations of the world, conveyed to their people by modern technology, has meanwhile raised material expectations to unrealistic levels. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. An examination of the few successful democracies in history suggests that they need to meet three conditions if they are to flourish. Bequeathed, too, was his innovative approach of conducting an orderly, thorough examination of the past to explain the causesand outcomesof past events. And they especially need leaders with the talents to persuade their impatient citizens that these political institutions are the necessary first foundation for a decent regime and a good life for all. This is no doubt in keeping with his principle of having the speakers in his history t& 6Eovta Eindtv, that is, speak those things that were suit-able for the occasion.1 For we know that the unwritten rules of the And, once it arrived, its damage knew no bounds, doing terrible harm to democracy itself. They also complained of the lack of uniform good character in the citizens, who were unpredictably involved in various activities and masters of none, with negative consequences for their military ability and moral quality. Gill, N.S. The first known date in his life is 472 bce, when he paid for the production of the playwright Aeschylus Persian trilogy. Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility. Athens lost its first citizen, but his legacy endures in the Athens skyline and in democratic institutions around the world. When it reappeared in the Western world more than two millennia later, it was broader but shallower. His position rested on his continual reelection to the generalship and on hisprestige, based, according to Thucydides, on his intelligence and incorruptibility. Highlights from the week in culture, every Saturday. Throughout Pericles, Prince of Tyre, there exists a blatant dichotomy between good and evil. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pericles-Athenian-statesman, Ancient Origins - Pericles: The Charismatic and Powerful Politician of Ancient Greece, World History Encyclopedia - Biography of Pericles, Perseus Digital Library - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology - Pericles, Pericles - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Pericles - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). From time to time the helots would break out in revolt, threatening the very existence of Sparta. He gave a speech in Athens, a public speech, honoring the many warriors who were killed in battle after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. He gave this speech during a funeral for Athenian soldiers who died in the first year of the brutal Peloponnesian War against Sparta, Athens's chief rival. Part of the answer lay in a quality of life unknown elsewhere, a range of activities that brought the pleasures of prosperity to the appetite, joy and wonder to the spirit, stimulation to the intellect, and pride to the soul. When wealthy aristocrats won victories in athletic contests, they could pay poets like Pindar to preserve their memories in verse; they could sponsor public monuments by great architects and sculptors; the richest of them could even erect temples to the gods, dedicated in their own names. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. In a democracy . If we had access to Pericles inner thoughts and to the many other speeches he delivered in his long career, we would possibly discover that he took no less pride in Athenians peaceful achievements of mind and spirit. 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